Bashar Assad's Brutal Regime in Syria is Main Course at Feast of Eid Freedom Rally in Anaheim Tonight

The Syrian Emergency Task Force-Greater LA, which has held protests in Irvine, Anaheim and Newport Beach against the brutal regime of Bashar Assad, holds a "rally for freedom" this evening that coincides with the Feast of Eid and the end of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan.

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Similar rallies were held in Anaheim every Saturday evening in August.

"As Syrian Americans, we stand in solidarity with the peaceful protesters in Syria who are spending their religious holiday of the Eid under heavy gunfire only because they asked for freedom. What we are witnessing a genocide and it's a shame that the world is silent," writes Ammar Kahf, a co-organizer of the rally, in an email.

Adds co-organizer, Yasser Dalati: "We demand an immediate stop of the bloodshed and violence in Syria, Bashar Assad must be referred to the International Criminal Court. It is shameful that as people celebrate the Holy feast of Eid the regime chooses to continue bombing and shooting."

Since protests began in Syria on March 15, more than 3,000 people have been killed, 5,000 have been reported missing, 15,000 have been arbitrarily detained and 12,577 have fled as refugees to Turkey and Lebanon. The U.S. government has declared Asaad has lost legitimacy and must step down.

Tonight's rally is scheduled to run from 6-7 p.m. at the corner of Brookhurst Street and Orange Avenue in Anaheim.

Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before "graduating" to OC Weekly in 1995 as the paper's first calendar editor. He has contributed as a freelance editor and writer to several publications and been the subject of or featured in several reports online, in print and on the radio and television. One of countless times he returned to his Costa Mesa, CA, home with a bounty of awards from a journalism competition, his wife told him to take out the trash.